Arch Enemy Arts is proud to present, Dust and Moonshine, the long-anticipated solo show from artist and master draughtsman, Michael Reedy. The new collection, nearly two years in the making, will be Reedy’s first and only collection released in 2016. That’s not to say these pieces have been kept a total secret, one of the standout pieces, ‘Prettier Than Ever’ was published this year in the book Dark Inspiration II, featured alongside ‘The Kiss’, another work for the show, in Fresh Paint Issue 12 in March, and you can also find it featured in the May issue (vl184) of Juxtapoz after winning the very prestigious ‘Best in Show’ award at this year’s Surreal Salon.

Michael Reedy’s paintings and drawings pull together from a range of styles and methods. blending together his incredible penchant for realism with medical illustration, op art, classical nudes, and other pictorial conventions creating a world and aesthetic that is uniquely his own. This collection, not unlike other recent works, blurs the contentious boundaries between life and death, person-hood and object, and the beautiful and the ugly; laying one on top of the others like a series of scripts that can be read simultaneously and foster a complex range of emotions where beauty, love, pain, loss, and despair seem entwined and inseparable.

“The delicate strands of silver hair that have started to populate my wife’s head most easily explain what motivates my work. At one moment, I find them incredibly beautiful, and celebrate the fact that I have had the opportunity to share my life with her, and in another moment, I am struck with my fear of growing older and eventually losing her. Everything eventually seems to revolve around this point-of-tension between beauty and despair, between living and dying. However, it is this duality that makes life beautiful! It is our ability to persevere in light of this duality that motivates much of my work. However, it should be stressed that I prefer to find the beauty in that silver hair. The characters that populate my work are only flirting with death –even the skeletons and skull portraits are very much living in my mind .” – Michael Reedy

Imaginary Menagerie IV: The Arch Enemy Arts Guide to Cryptozoology

On 9/2, AEA returns with the newest edition of its highly acclaimed ‘Imaginary Menagerie’ series. For this chapter, the Arch Enemy Arts’ official guide to cryptozoology adds 13 additional artists, each using their own unique creative style to render and breathe new life into ancient legends and fabled mythological beasts.

Imaginary Menagerie first opened in April 2015, and our third installment brings our total number of participating artists and legend beasts to 68 in under 18 months. The bestiary within Volume IV includes brand new works by Naoto Hattori, Jim McKenzie, Julie Filipekno, Matt Ritchie, Nick Sheehy, Daria Hlazatova, Jeremy Bastian, Veks Van Hillik, Jessica Wolfert, Scott G. Brooks, Jason Limon, Matthew Greskiewicz, and JoKa, and introduces 13 more fantastic beasts to the growing Imaginary Menagerie catalog